Picked up copies of the second release on Wiseblood Media, the label run by Aaron Davis(Acre); "Ruins" by the Slaves. Really killer art and design for this tape, a fold-up card stock sleeve with printing on just about every surface, just beautiful as an object.

The Slaves - Ruins - Wiseblood Media
To be honest, my encounters with the Slaves as a live band have been iffy at best -- it always seems like something very interesting is about to happen, and maybe it does for a minute or two, but it never quite holds together. So it was really a very nice surprise to hear how spot on this tape is, start to finish. Unlike their shows(maybe this not the case any more, it's been a while since I've seen them), Ruins consists not of "songs" but two side-long drones. This stuff is very much in the vein of early, pre-song Grouper -- bleak, slow-moving, and the voice a specter pulled along in the wash of sound. Underneath it all -- and one of my favorite aspects of the Slaves -- the impossibly rich tones of a Roland Juno synthesizer move in dour procession, those slow chords perhaps the very heart of the band. $6